Matt
Henry, Ben Hilfenhaus, Samuel Badree and Dwayne Smith will compete for the 4th
international player slot - based on whether Dhoni wants to play an extra
bowler or batsman.

There
are a lot of all rounders in the squad. Even though Dhoni doesn’t prefer
it, I think there will be a lot more changes in the playing XI this year for
CSK - it will take a while before Dhoni settles in on a preferred XI.

The batting looks solid with tremendous power - big hitters who can post massive
scores on good batting wickets. But with guys like Hussey and Badri gone,
I wonder who will provide stability in low scoring games.

The
bowling looks pretty weak to me - even with the two Indian spinners Ashwin and
Jadeja in the attack. The fast bowling department looks particularly
weak. Dhoni cannot count on this bowling squad to win matches for him.
He will probably look at setting reasonable targets for the bowlers and
ask them to execute on set plans. It will be interesting to see how
Ishwar Pandey bowls. This might be the seeding ground for him before he
goes on to play for India.

Overall,
this team does not look threatening on paper. However, CSK so far has had
an impressive IPL track record. Will the
Dhoni magic work this time as well …Let us see if he can get them to the
semi-finals yet again.

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